INCLUSION DAILY
EXPRESSInternational Disability Rights News Service

http://www.InclusionDaily.comYour
quick, once-a-day look at disability rights, self-determination and the
movement toward full community inclusion around the world.

Tuesday, March 30, 2004Year V, Edition 902

Today's front page features 9 news and information items,
each preceded by a number (#) symbol.Click on the"Below the Fold"
link at the bottom of this page for 41 more news items.

QUOTES OF THE DAY:"Reagan probably appreciates the critical value
of home care, and wouldn't want cuts that would force thousands of other
families to put loved ones into institutions."--Marty Omoto, commenting
on California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposals that would undo a
"civil rights act" for people with developmental disabilities which Governor
Ronald Reagan signed 35 years ago (Sixth story)

"To me, it's what I think our country's all about."--Florida
voter Dan O'Conner, talking about a judge's ruling which ordered Duvall County
to provide accessible voting systems in time for the August 2004 primary
elections (Fourth story)

CLEARWATER,
FLORIDA--Terri Schiavo was rushed to a hospital emergency room Monday night,
after nursing home workers reported finding what appeared to be marks made by a
small hypodermic needle on her arms.

Terri was returned to the nursing home a few hours later, after
toxicology and blood tests found no unauthorized drugs or other substances in
her system.

"There is no reason for concern," Clearwater Police spokesman Wayne
Shelor said. "Neither my detective who stopped by the scene at the hospital,
nor the medical experts found anything that gave them any pause."

Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, said the five small puncture
wounds -- four on one arm, and one on the other -- indicated that Terri had
been a victim of battery.

"It appears that someone was either trying to inject Terri Schiavo with
something or withdraw fluids from her," Felos said. "Even if there was nothing
injected in her body, there is certainly evidence of an unpermitted physical
contact, a battery on her."

Nursing personnel said they noticed the marks immediately after Terri's
parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, visited her for 45 minutes.

Mr. Schindler told a local television station that nothing was wrong
when he left Terri. He denied inserting a needle into her arms.

George Tragos, an attorney representing the Schindlers, said it was
"absurd" to suggest that Terri's parents were responsible for the marks.

"It's just another mean-spirited attack designed to get some judicial
advantage," Tragos told the Associated Press.

Mr. Schiavo has ordered that Terri have no visitors until authorities
have completed their investigation.

The Schindlers and Michael Schiavo have been waging a legal war over
Terri's life for the past six years. While her parents believe she responds to
her environment and is alert, her husband believes she has been in a
"persistent vegetative state", that she cannot interact with her surroundings,
cannot feel pain, and will not recover from her 1990 brain injury. He
petitioned the court in 1998 to have her feeding tube removed, claiming that
she told him before her injury that she would not have wanted to live "by
artificial means".

The courts ordered her feeding tube removed so she would die of
starvation and dehydration on October 16, 2003. Governor Jeb Bush, responding
to tens of thousands of messages from disability rights advocates and
right-to-life supporters, championed "Terri's Law" through the Legislature,
giving him permission to have the feeding tube reinserted six days later.

Mr. Schiavo immediately sued the governor, claiming that the law
violated Terri's privacy, along with the Florida Constitution. That case is
still pending.

On Monday afternoon, Pinellas County Circuit Judge George W. Greer
denied the Schindlers' motion seeking to have Mr. Schiavo defend their claims
that he is violating a 1996 court order which required him to share medical
information about Terri. Schiavo argued that he has shared sufficient
information with them through attorneys, which he claimed is the accepted
protocol.

Inmates With Intellectual
Disabilities To Be Served In CommunityMarch 30, 2004

WELLINGTON,
NEW ZEALAND--Health Ministry and Corrections Department officials estimate that
40 prison inmates with intellectual disabilities would be moved to psychiatric
hospitals or care homes in the community under a new law that takes effect July
1.

The Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation Act was designed to provide
specialized support for offenders that have intellectual disabilities -- here
defined as having an IQ of about 70 or less and "a significant inability to
function independently" -- in the community rather than behind bars. The law
will have police, lawyers, Corrections staff and others identify such offenders
and divert them out of the criminal justice system.

Time-limited treatment plans will be drawn up, and supports will be
provided in supervised community homes or, for those considered a high security
risk, a secure unit at a psychiatric hospital.

Lester Mundell, the Health Ministry's disability services chief adviser,
told the Dominion Post that people with intellectual disabilities are much more
likely to be victims of crime than to be perpetrators.

"Society is at far more risk from the so-called normal members," Mundell
said.

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA--On August 20, 2000, Sheri Renee Herring, a
resident of Albert P. Brewer Developmental Center in Mobile, Alabama was rushed
to the hospital after, as one doctor described it, being bitten by fire ants
"so many times that the bites were too numerous to count".

The 36-year-old Herring -- who has Rett syndrome and is not able to move
her limbs, call for help, or even scream -- had been discovered in her bed
covered from head to toe with the stinging, poisonous insects at about 5:30
a.m. Officials said she was okay when she was checked just a few hours
earlier.

Department of Health investigators later found seven documented
incidents of fire ant infestations in the three months prior to the attack on
Herring. Staff members had reported finding fire ants on floors, walls,
drinking fountains, and in residents' beds.

University of Mississippi researchers are now warning that non-native
fire ants are becoming an increasing danger for residents of nursing homes and
other institutions. During the past decade, scientists have documented at least
six attacks by South American fire ants in nursing homes in Florida, Texas and
Mississippi, along with Herring's attack in the neighboring Alabama
institution.

At least 4 nursing home residents have died within a week of a fire ant
attack, according to a story in Sunday's Associated Press.

"In a sense, this is a wake-up call for the future," said Robin
Rockhold, a professor of toxicology and pharmacology at the University of
Mississippi Medical School. "We need recognition of the potential for this
problem."

Rockhold noted that the patients who were attacked by fire ants had
physical or mental disabilities that kept them from moving away or shouting for
help.

"Is seven attacks in 10 years a problem? Of course," said Jeff Smokler,
spokesman for the American Health Care Association. "One attack is a problem.
One is too many."

Experts say that the fast-moving insects -- which have been in the South
since the 1930s -- are spreading to the north, east and west.

In a decision that was made public Monday, U.S. District Judge Wayne
Alley ordered the county to equip 20 percent of its voting precincts with
touch-screen machines in time for the August 2004 primary election.

Touch-screen machines allow voters with limited mobility to mark
selections by touching large buttons. They are also equipped with voice
instructions to help voters that are blind or cannot read. Optical scan
systems, however, require voters to fill in small ovals on paper ballots.

Judge Alley pointed out that Jacksonville voters with disabilities have
had an equal opportunity to vote, but not an independent one. By having to rely
on others to make their selections, voters who are blind or cannot read have
not been able to exercise their right to cast a secret ballot.

"To me, it's what I think our country's all about," Dan O'Connor, who
has been legally blind for more than a decade, told WJXT-TV.

"The major obstacle of the current system for me is that I have to rely
on someone else."

County elections officials have until this Friday to decide whether they
will appeal Alley's decision.

In various news reports, officials said that purchasing the estimated 60
touch-screen machines would cost between $180,000 and $250,000, which could
present a hardship to the county. Another problem is that the state has not yet
certified touch-screen machines that are compatible with the Diebold optical
scan system the county currently uses. The new machines will not likely be
certified until May at the earliest.

BEIJING, CHINA--The government of China
did a great deal in 2003 to advance the rights of its citizens with
disabilities, according to a human rights white paper published Tuesday by the
State Council's Information Office.

A section dealing with issues facing people with disabilities were
included in the report, entitled "Progress in China's Human Rights Cause in
2003".

The report noted that the government is working to implement its
"Outline of the Tenth Five-Year Plan for the Disabled in China (2001-2005)",
which includes "improving the legal system, implementing state programs,
mobilizing social forces and providing equal opportunities . . . to give
special help to the disabled, establish and gradually improve the system for
the protection of human rights of the disabled, encourage them to participate
in social life on an equal footing, and share the material and cultural
achievements of society."

The white paper went on to boast about the increase in the number of
special education schools and specialized programs in "ordinary" schools;
specialized employment "entities"; sports programs for athletes with
disabilities; and social service programs.

The report cited government statistics which estimated that there are 60
million people with disabilities in China, accounting for about 5 percent of
the total population of 1.2 billion.

It should be noted that the United Nations estimated recently that 10
percent of the world's population has disabilities. The U.S. Census in 2000
estimated that over 50 million people in the United States have disabilities,
amounting to nearly 20 percent of the nation's 280 million inhabitants.

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA--The
following two paragraphs are excerpts from a brief opinion piece by Marty
Omoto, director of the California Disability Community Action Network, for the
Sacramento Bee:

Ronald Reagan, now a person with severe disabilities cared for in his
own home, probably would not be happy with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's
proposals that would undo the Lanterman Act, the "civil rights act" for people
with developmental disabilities that he signed 35 years ago. Reagan probably
appreciates the critical value of home care, and wouldn't want cuts that would
force thousands of other families to put loved ones into institutions.

The Lanterman Act, authored by a Republican, passed by a
Republican-controlled Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Reagan, began a
profound transformation of recognizing rights. Now we are witnessing attempts
to undo those rights. When light shines on the details, it is simply a brutal
attack on children and adults with disabilities.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK--Researchers at the Johns
Hopkins University School of Medicine have found that most parents raising
children with chronic illnesses report that, while there are difficulties,
their families benefit from the experience.

The researchers surveyed 190 mothers in the Baltimore area raising
children with either sickle cell disease, diabetes, cystic fibrosis or moderate
to severe asthma.

Eighty percent of the mothers reported that the experience of raising a
child with a chronic illness had benefited their families, and 70 percent said
their families were actually stronger as a result.

Ninety-eight percent of the mothers noted at least one positive effect
on them personally, and 88 percent said they felt better about themselves from
having learned to manage their child's illness. As a direct result of caring
for their ill children, 21 percent said the family was now closer.

"We as professionals tend to focus on what's wrong and what we can do to
help, so this is a reminder that we also need to acknowledge the positive
aspects," lead study author Dr. Robin G. Chernoff told Reuters news
service.

The study is published in the March-April issue of the medical journal
Ambulatory Pediatrics.